[K-Dog]

CASEBOOK.ICRC.ORG • 2025-12-04

History Lesson

The Peleus trial of Kapitänleutnant Heinz Eck and four others for the  killing of members of the crew of the Greek steamship Peleus, sunk on  the high seas.

Check out the link before you read on.  You know you want to.

I did not watch it when it aired, but I binged watched it later.  The Sopranos.  An average person in the mini-series might be killed.  But anyone who had cancelled someone else's ticket and was part of the killing machine was sure to die.  The Sopranos is a modern morality play.  If 👹 Deathseth 👹 watched it, the obvious message went ovah his head.  Like Jets.

morality plays were specifically intended to teach moral lessons. They were a type of medieval drama, popular in the 15th and 16th centuries, designed to illustrate the struggle between good and evil in a way that educated the audience about virtuous living and the consequences of sin.

Characters were often allegorical—such as Everyman, who represents all people, or abstract concepts like Virtue, Vice, Knowledge, and Death—rather than individual personalities. The purpose was didactic: to guide the audience toward ethical behavior, religious devotion, and spiritual reflection.

On the Sopranos, if you wacked somebody, you got wacked.  It might not happen until the next season, but it happened.  And at the end when there was the brilliant fade to black that left you asking?  Now you know.  Tony had to go.  And if there were a sequel to the series, that guy in the' Members Only' jacket would have to go too.  Like 2 and 2 is 4.

Trump, Deathseth, and others in the MAGA clown show are 'Members'.  If real life was like the Soprano mini-series, one of them would be mauled to death by a dog.  And they all would have to go.

[RE]

The return of the Hitler Youth!



Let's not forget the League of German Mattresses! 😁



https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/from-restraint-to-readiness-germany-considers-conscription/

From Restraint to Readiness? Germany Considers Conscription

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[K-Dog]

An article by a total warhawk.

Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Fuck that.  The author is ignorant.

Catherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783 after a series of military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, aiming to expand Russian territory and influence in the region. Her journey to Crimea in 1787 was a significant event that showcased her power and the Russian Empire's ambitions.

Russian troops were legally present before 2014, and in 2014 the people voted.  Ukraine is a construct, founded in fascist roots.

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It's not just Taiwan... Five flashpoints that could spark World War Three in 2026
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/predictions-conflict-war-russia-america-middle-east-taiwan-black-jellyfish-b2891404.html

It's not just Taiwan... Five flashpoints that could spark World War Three in 2026

Five global tinderboxes are ready to blow, fragile regions where the newer attack methods of cyber, information and influence are getting stuck in, writes Robert Fox – and the British government needs to wake up to them quickly unless it wants an even more unpleasant shock in the coming year
Monday 29 December 2025 11:13 GMT

There is something ambivalent about the season of goodwill, as it usually triggers a splurge of journalistic predictions of bad things to come for the new year; more trouble and pestilence and worse wars. One point of comfort is that journalists, on the whole, make lousy prophets. So, in the ambiguous spirit of the season, let's look at the places and occasions that could spark wider confrontation, regional war or a global standoff.

Not that I can foresee a war in Europe, or anywhere else, of the kind gloomily forecast by Mark Rutte, the secretary general of Nato – "on the scale of war our fathers and grandfathers". Whatever is in the works, it will not be anything like the great wars of the 20th century.

There will be no let-up in the intensity of combat and violence we are now seeing in Ukraine, Sudan, Rwanda and Congo, and Yemen. The standoff between Thailand and Cambodia seems tense as ever, and the ghastly bouts of civil strife and massacre in Myanmar are intensifying as the military junta finagles elections this spring.

A random spark in several of these conflicts could be the trigger for wider confrontation. As Rutte warned, we need to be prepared for war in order to prevent it.
The Baltics

Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will continue to fight for outright victory in Ukraine, and if Europe wants war, he is ready. He is likely to provoke the European allies of Nato and in the EU at a number of pinch points – especially in the Baltic, the North Atlantic and through the Balkans. This could be the use of false flag incidents around the enclave of Kaliningrad, the wedge between Poland and Lithuania. This means dressing up a border incident as a piece of aggression by a Nato ally, such as those in recent months by covert Russian disruption of border patrols on the frontier with Norway and Estonia.

Nuisance patrols by Russian submarines to test the new Nato concept of the Atlantic Bastion security and early warning system are sure to increase, given the steady improvement of Russian submarine services deployed from the Kola Peninsula. They will be accompanied by more attention in British home waters as well as the Baltic by the ships and subs of the GUGI surveillance and sabotage intelligence service, especially their mothership, the Yantar.

The Kremlin will try to provoke us, while Trump's America is acting nice to Moscow and quarrels with European allies. It will be tempted to act before European Nato can get its rearmament act together. A falling out between the US and a founding Nato ally, Denmark, over Greenland is an opportunity too good to miss.
South America

The second major area of jeopardy for the United States is the American continent itself, where Trumpland has reclaimed hegemony in its new National Security Strategy, resurrecting the old continental claim by President Monroe back in 1823. It is not only a question of regime change in Venezuela, on which Donald Trump has now set his heart, apparently. Any American incursion in Venezuela risks repeating the mistakes made with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the former general and secretary of state Colin Powell remarked, if you break a thing in these actions, you own the problem. There would be an urgent need to reform and run the security forces and the public administration, or face years of civil war, as in Iraq.

Action in Venezuela would accelerate the incipient instability across the region from Ecuador to Colombia and Guyana. Beneath the inflated Trumpian rhetoric, the key element is oil and the US becoming the dominant global oil power. This is sure to upset the big Opec powers and China, a big stakeholder in South America.
Sudan

A third region, the Middle East, is a tinderbox of risk for further warfare – from Kurdistan in the north to the Arabian peninsula, Sudan and Somalia across sub-Saharan Africa. Gaza is still a flashpoint, as are Yemen and Sudan. In South Yemen and Sudan, the proxies of the two biggest powers of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are in open war. The shaky regime in Iran could pick its moment to attack, directly on Israel or by working through proxies from Syria through to the RSF militia in Darfur and beyond.

"There is no sense of security across Sudan whatsoever," says Pasquale Ferrara, who has designed Italian policy for the region for years, "but a huge amount of arms." Fighting on the borders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has strategic implications, given the contest for minerals such as rare earths and cadmium, between the agents of China, Russia's former Wagner group, and powerful organised crime gangs.
Pakistan-India

In south and southeast Asia, my fourth regional scenario, several standoffs have growth potential for conflict. Pakistan and India eye each other over Kashmir and Afghanistan, and India confronts China across their high mountain border. Cambodia and Thailand are not fully at peace, whatever Trump may claim, though the trouble is unlikely to spread.
Taiwan

The fifth area of major conflict concern has to be China. In 2025, Xi Jinping and his regime have been the global grandmasters of the art of strategic ambiguity, outsmarting Trump and Putin where it counts. Next year, Xi might well calculate that the US president is too distracted by Venezuela, Ukraine, Gaza and his own ego to react in time, if China were to try a decisive move against Taiwan by overt or covert means.

A mistimed and botched bid for Taiwan would provoke a huge reaction in all the major regional players, including India and Japan, Australia and America. In a worst-case scenario, it risks a truly global confrontation.

The risks of war and conflict are not just a matter of geography, the tinderbox of five fragile regions, nor of the old-fashioned means of warfare and diplomacy. There are the less obvious, usually unannounced, means of attack, through cyber, information and influence – the aspect of security and resilience for which the UK, for example, seems so woefully unprepared. Our governments just don't want to think about it, and least not obviously or transparently so. Think of the bill for the cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover, now believed to be the work of a Russian proxy – a loss of £1.5bn to the company and £5bn for the national economy.

More concerning is what the business school geeks call a "black jellyfish" phenomenon – the terrible monster of the deep we want to ignore till it's too late and to our ultimate peril. The black jellyfish in warfare may be new forms of biological and chemical weaponry – something more lethal and elusive than the ricin, sarin, polonium and novichok we have seen deployed as terrorist tools in the past half-century. In the hands of the non-state cult member and fanatic, they could be the biggest threat of all.

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[RE]

AXIOS.COM 2026-02-18

Trump moves closer to a major war with Iran

Between the lines: The standoff with Iran has gone on so long that many Americans are likely numb to it. War could come sooner, and be much bigger, than most recognize, sources say.  Trump's military and rhetorical build-ups make it hard for him to back down without major concessions from Iran on its nuclear program.  It's not in Trump's nature, and his advisers don't view the deployment of all that hardware as a bluff.

With Trump, anything can happen. But all signs point to him pulling the trigger if talks fail.

When Dictators are floundering at home, the solution is to go to WAR abroad.  This will of course totally make a mess in a goobermint completely unable to govern, and there is close to ZERO chance it will be over in a couple of weeks.  Free elections?  ANY ELECTIONS?  Don't hold your breath.

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[RE]

CNN.COM 2026-02-19

Trump’s rationale is still opaque as he slides closer to war with Iran

There’s no full-court press from top national security officials. President Donald Trump is making hardly any effort to share the rationale for the potential or why military personnel might be asked to risk their lives. And the White House is giving no public sign that it knows what may unfold in Iran if its clerical regime is toppled, an eventuality that could cause enormous reverberations in the Middle East.

He hasn't shared a "rationale" for war because he doesn't have one.  He is IRRATIONAL.  He also has NO PLAN beyond dropping the Death from Above down on them and bombing them back to the stone age for a few weeks.  He's got no idea how to run a puppet goobermint, he can't even run his own goobermint.  They're certainly not going to get a "Democratic" goobermint, the best he could hope for is some kind of military dictatorship.    The son of the last "Shah" who was a CIA Puppet has been lobbying to be re-installed, but it's doubtful he has any relationship with the command structure of today's Revolutionary Guard.  The old Shah was at least an officer in the pre-revolutionary army.

Chances are you end up with a power vacuum with numerous factions vying for power, anarchy and increasing internal and international terrorism.  Even if sanctions were lifted, it wouldn't be a very safe place for the oil majors to invest money, so they probably won't be anymore enthusiastic about Iran then they are about Venezuela.  You'll have a humanitarian crisis which he would welcome since it's just Towel Head kids dying, but there's no good coastline to redevelop with casinos and condos. lol.

Despite the lack of rationale, the fact is he's sent a whole lotta military hardware over there, and unless he gets some kind of "deal" he can brag about, he'll look pretty ineffectual unless he hits them with the big stick.  So that's what he's most likely to do.

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[RE]

DW.COM 2026-03-18

Iran war overlaps with Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict

With airstrikes on Afghan territory, including the strategically important Bagram Airfield, Pakistan has declared open war on the Taliban. This escalation coincides with the war in Iran.

I think we can officially declare WWIII in progress with major battles in Ukraine, Lebanon, Gaza & Iran currently underway, as well as several African brushfires.  As the fertilizer and oil shortages start to bite, I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more break out.  With this one, let's remember Pakistan is a Nuke power.

Now the only question is how long before hostilities begin within the borders of the FSoA?

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ALJAZEERA.COM 2026-03-21

Iran does not need to close the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt it

The real threat lies not in blocking the waterway, but in quietly turning its approaches into a zone of uncertainty that global shipping cannot ignore

This is why no matter what Trumpolini does, shipping through the straight has little likelihood of returning to pre-war levels in the forseeable future.  Anything leaving the Gulf will remain a target, and the risk premium that will drive up prices remains enormous.

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[K-Dog]

This is why no matter what Trumpolini does, shipping through the straight has little likelihood of returning to pre-war levels in the forseeable future.  Anything leaving the Gulf will remain a target, and the risk premium that will drive up prices remains enormous.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Iran cannot defeat the United States militarily. It cannot win a conventional war against the US-Israeli alliance. What it can do is make the cost of the war unbearable for the economies that are funding and sustaining the attacks against it.  And it should do so.  Iran should force Regime change.  I'm Ok with that.

Anyone with a functional brain has known for thirty years that messing with Iran is grabbing Karma by the tail.

[K-Dog]

This is why no matter what Trumpolini does, shipping through the straight has little likelihood of returning to pre-war levels in the forseeable future.  Anything leaving the Gulf will remain a target, and the risk premium that will drive up prices remains enormous.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Iran cannot defeat the United States militarily. It cannot win a conventional war against the US-Israeli alliance. What it can do is make the cost of the war unbearable for the economies that are funding and sustaining the attacks against it.  And it should do so.  Iran should force Regime change.  I'm Ok with that.

Anyone with a functional brain has known for thirty years that messing with Iran is grabbing Karma by the tail.






Look at his desperation.  While Trump claims victory.

INDIANEXPRESS.COM 2026-03-21

Desperate measures: Why Trump suspended sanctions on Iranian oil at sea

For years, the US has prevented the sale of Iranian oil and fuels to most of the world. Yet, Washington is now facilitating oil sales from a country against whom it is waging a war. After announcing a month-long sanctions waiver for purchase of Russian crude already in tankers on water, the US has now suspended for a month the sanctions on Iranian crude already loaded on tankers.

The Donald Trump administration is evidently desperate, as the raging West Asia conflict has sent global oil prices soaring to multi-year highs, which in turn have led to a jump in fuel prices in the US.

It is an attempt to keep the price of oil -- lower.

Has anybody told Trump about this? From everything we're reading, the answer is probably not. Uh basically uh we're in a situation where the the court hearers don't tell the the emperor that he has no clothes and don't tell him that uh actually war in the Persian Gulf really hurts the United States a lot too.

So you know God knows and by the way I have no idea how this ends. Uh it's I I don't I don't even know what I would do at this point. I mean it take a time machine and go back and not do this, but now it's it's going to be really really ugly.  And have a nice weekend.

[K-Dog]

What Trump started.  But for Trump this would not be happening, and that building would still be standing.

WSWS.ORG 2026-03-16

Israel begins its long-planned ground invasion of Lebanon

Israel’s US-backed war against Lebanon has entered a new and bloody stage with the start of a long-prepared ground invasion conducted under the umbrella of the widening imperialist war against Iran.

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THEGUARDIAN.COM 2026-04-21

Trump wants $1.5tn for the Pentagon – and cuts to healthcare and housing

The president’s proposed $445bn increase in military spending would batter popular domestic programs as millions struggle.

With Americans focused on Donald Trump's deeply unpopular war against Iran, far too few Americans are focusing on another disastrous Trump idea: increasing the Pentagon's budget to a colossal $1.5tn. Just as Trump's Iran war has hurt millions of Americans by sending gas prices skyward, Trump's supersized Pentagon budget will hurt millions of Americans because Trump, to help finance that budget, is pushing for painful cuts in health, education, and housing programs.

Regardless of how many social programs are cut, the only way this could ever be financed is by debt monetization.  The Chinese won't dribble out their mountain of USTs, they'll spray them on the market wholesale with a firehose.  Given His Trumpness low popularity and political capital, there's little chance of this budget going thru as proposed, but what it will do is lock up the CONgress Critters in fruitless jawboning, nothing will get done and we'll have yet another budget crises, this time maybe ending in a default to really trash the value of the dollar.

Hard to imagine how one man could possibly have done more to destroy what was left of Amerika in such a short period of time than The Donald.  Osama Bin Ladin as POTUS would be less destructive.

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